EV optimism collides with fleet economics

Should I switch on the electric sauna now, or wait until the washing machine has finished its cycle? And when is a good time to run the dishwasher? And will the system blow if I run them all together?

You might not have such thoughts, but monitoring how much energy such equipment uses and when electricity needed is the cheapest is a regular concern for Markus Rauramo, President of Europe’s electricity sector association Eurelectric.

The close watch on the cents by Rauramo reflects how such firms would like us all to treat electric vehicles (EVs): as devices that could use optimum charging (and perhaps discharging) routines to become more economic and therefore more attractive to drivers.

Spreading the charging of millions of EVs across the 24 hours of each day would help to reduce the expensive peaks and troughs of electricity supply while meeting society's demand for electrification of transport to meet climate targets.

And if EVs were able to use bidirectional chargers that could also sell energy back into the grid when the vehicles were parked, or use it to power the owners' homes, for example, the owners could make some money and electricity companies could tap an energy source.

Not so fleet of foot

Yet despite the lure of lucre, EVs can still be a hard sell, particularly to operators of road vehicle fleets, such as delivery firms, bus operators, taxi companies and freight handlers. Fleet operators run half of the cars sold in Europe, but largely buy on price, said Martin Roemheld, Chief Executive of the charging operator Mobility+ of the energy group EnBW: "The fleet operator buys with a calculator."

An asset such as an electric delivery truck costs far more than the equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) truck, even if operating costs are lower. And operators worry about factors such as the residual value of the vehicles and batteries when it comes time to replace them. They also see the varied application across Europe of the Eurovignette system that allows EU countries to exempt battery electric and fuel-cell buses and trucks from road tolls or charges; some countries have partial exemptions, and some no exemptions.

Yet fleets offer big advantages for advocates of EVs, such as largely constant and predictable usage of vehicles, often with fixed routes and distances, making the planning of charging more manageable.

"Fleet electrification has an enormous potential for everyone. But it is not a low-hanging fruit," Constantin Gall, Global Aerospace, Defence and Mobility Sector Leader at the consultancy EY, told Eurelectric's recent EVision conference on EVs in Brussels, Belgium.

Yet companies are adopting commercial EVs. The shipping company DHL, for example, has 30,000 EVs in its 100,000 worldwide delivery vehicle fleet. 

"Electrification is a way for us to reduce our costs," said Adrien Dedieu, the company's Global Strategy Director for Auto-Mobility. EVs also met DHL's need for reliability, as it traded on its reputation for reliable handling and delivery, Dedieu told Enlit Media. By 2030, DHL expected EVs to handle 60% of its pick-ups and deliveries, as vehicles were gradually replaced after a typical 10—15 year life.

Dedieu told Enlit Media that when DHL considered buying EVs a decade ago, the lack of options led to the company developing its own. He said that the company's small vans, which typically travelled 150—200km per day, were cost-competitive with ICE rivals, with lighter maintenance and less downtime. "It's a no-brainer for us." That was despite the need to charge vehicles several times each day, which was usually carried out for vans and cars at its depots.

Such fleets could in theory act as energy storage systems, providing operators with back-up power if grid supplies, perhaps from renewables, were broken, said Julia Souder, Chief Executive of the Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Council.

Yet Dedieu told Enlit Media that such an idea, along with possible trading of excess battery capacity, was only a vague idea for DHL, which is itself a big user of electricity.

For heavy goods vehicles, depot charging was the backbone of electrification, said Knut Gravråk, Chief Executive of the Norwegian Road Transport Association, with only 20% of charging by his members at public chargers. Depot charging capacity could be built faster than new connections and upstream supply capacity, said Alina Laszlo-Orth, Head of EU Affairs at the utility EON.

"Fleet electrification can be a real stabilising factor [for grids] with the right regulatory framework", concluded Gabrielle Clark, Energy Policy Officer, Climate and Sustainability at Eurelectric. 

However, Kristian Ruby, the Eurelectric Secretary General, told EVision that the progress towards electrification of road transport was "so-so". Ludĕk Niedermayer, a member of the European Parliament (MEP), told the meeting that there was plenty of good EV technology and that climate change did not allow for its slow deployment: "We don't have time. We have to speed up."

Yet electric car sales have reached high levels in some European countries, leading to 68% of new cars registered in the EU being electric, according to Edorado Turano, Head of Unit for Mobility at the European Commission's climate action arm DG Clima.

In Norway, for example, new ICE cars are an endangered species, with EVs accounting for 95.9% of new car registrations in 2025, according to the consultancy EY. In the whole of Europe, 29% of new cars were electric, it found.

Barriers abound

However, disincentives to EV sales exist, according to the industry. They included a lack of charging infrastructure, particularly public charging points for heavy goods vehicles, an inability of many electricity distribution companies to provide power at proposed charging points, long waits for permits to build and a lack of signals to prompt EV purchases. 

"There are not enough incentives," said Marie Knutsen-Öy, Vice-President of Energy Solutions at the autonomous electric freight vehicle company Einride.

Miltiades Babilis, the Chief E-mobility Officer of the south-eastern Europe energy group PPC, which has an expanding network of charging points and about 45 charging hubs in Greece, for example, complained about the "fragmentation of the permitting process", with the company having to navigate several layers of permitting in order to install its devices.

Babilis also pointed to a problem that is seen as common across much of Europe: the lack of transparency about the ability of local electricity distribution grid operators to feed chargers. He said that PPC often learned of an operator's inability to provide a supply only after PPC had reached an agreement with a customer to invest in a charger.

More on e-mobility:
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The Grids Package of policy measures unveiled on 10 December 2025 by the European Commission was expected to ease the process of approving loads such as charging points and generation plants and their connections to grids. Today, delays can last years.

The long queues for approvals were in part because grid operators are required to treat applications on a first-come, first-served basis. However, 60-70% of grid connection applications were speculative, said Zuzana Sadlova, Policy Officer at the energy arm of the European Commission, DG Ener, which classes charging stations as projects of "overriding public interest". 

The Grids Package, therefore, proposed moving to a "first-ready, first-served approach" to bypass phantom projects. However, that could shift risk onto developers, who might have to spend more early on before securing firm grid access.

And Laszlo-Orth at EON said that grid companies were not in a position to decide between competing access bids.

Yet without a steady and strong growth in the charging infrastructure, EV demand could stall.